The Mystery of Romney

March 7, 2011

Romney remains a mystery to me: He's smart, he was a good governor, he's essentially a responsible moderate-conservative...but he has made an utter fool of himself flip-flopping and fudging--and taking wildly stupid positions (against the START treaty, for example) on issues about which he knows little or nothing. It almost seems a personality disorder. In this case, his efforts to distance himself from his own, essentially successful program, are particularly pathetic. If the man had the tiniest smidgeon of courage, he would make a conservative argument in favor of universal health care--it liberates a great deal of potential economic energy (all those would-be entrepreneurs now stuck in stultifying corporate jobs because they don't want to leave their health plans). Or he would simply plead humanity: it's inhumane for an industrial giant not provide health care for all its citizens.

But no. Instead we get the embarrassing spectacle of an intelligent man acting like a semi-coherent jerk.